Old Dominion University ODU Digital Commons Psychology Faculty Publications Psychology 5-2020 The Convergence Between Cultural Psychology and Developmental Science: Acculturation as an Exemplar Seth J. Schwartz Ágnes Szabó Alan Meca Old Dominion University, [email protected] Colleen Ward Charles R. Martinez Jr. See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/psychology_fac_pubs Part of the Developmental Psychology Commons, and the Personality and Social Contexts Commons Original Publication Citation Schwartz, S. J., Szabó, Á., Meca, A., Ward, C., Martinez, C. R., Jr, Cobb, C. L., Benet-Martínez, V., Unger, J. B., & Pantea, N. (2020). The convergence between cultural psychology and developmental science: Acculturation as an exemplar. Frontiers in psychology, 11, 887. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00887 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Psychology at ODU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Psychology Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of ODU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Seth J. Schwartz, Ágnes Szabó, Alan Meca, Colleen Ward, Charles R. Martinez Jr., Cory L. Cobb, Verónica Benet-Martínez, Jennifer B. Unger, and Nadina Pantea This article is available at ODU Digital Commons: https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/psychology_fac_pubs/104 fpsyg-11-00887 May 10, 2020 Time: 19:24 # 1 REVIEW published: 12 May 2020 doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00887 The Convergence Between Cultural Psychology and Developmental Science: Acculturation as an Exemplar Seth J. Schwartz1*, Ágnes Szabó2, Alan Meca3, Colleen Ward1, Charles R. Martinez Jr.4, Cory L. Cobb4, Verónica Benet-Martínez5, Jennifer B. Unger6 and Nadina Pantea7 1 Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, United States, 2 School of Health, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand, 3 Department of Psychology, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, United States, 4 College of Education, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, United States, 5 ICREA and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain, 6 Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, 7 School of Psychology, Universitatea Babes˛-Bolyai, Cluj-Napoca, Romania The present article proposes an integration between cultural psychology and developmental science. Such an integration would draw on the cultural-psychology Edited by: principle of culture–psyche interactions, as well as on the developmental-science Marina M. Doucerain, $ Université du Québec à Montréal, principle of person context relations. Our proposed integration centers on Canada acculturation, which is inherently both cultural and developmental. Specifically, we Reviewed by: propose that acculturation is governed by specific transactions between the individual Gordon Sammut, and the cultural context, and that different types of international migrants (e.g., legal University of Malta, Malta Jessica Dere, immigrants, undocumented immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, crisis migrants) University of Toronto Scarborough, encounter quite different culture–psyche interactions and person$context relations. Canada We outline the ways in which various acculturation-related phenomena, such as *Correspondence: Seth J. Schwartz acculturation operating at macro-level versus micro-level time scales, can be viewed [email protected] through cultural and developmental lenses. The article concludes with future directions in research on acculturation as an intersection of cultural and developmental processes. Specialty section: This article was submitted to Keywords: cultural psychology, developmental science, acculturation, international migration, mutual Cultural Psychology, constitution, person$context relations a section of the journal Frontiers in Psychology Received: 15 July 2019 INTRODUCTION Accepted: 09 April 2020 Published: 12 May 2020 Cultural psychology has been well established as a scientific discipline for several decades. Although Citation: the term ‘cultural psychology’ was first introduced by DeVos and Hippler in 1969, its theoretical and Schwartz SJ, Szabó Á, Meca A, historical roots go as far back as the 1920s, when the Vygotsky-Luria Circle, an interdisciplinary Ward C, Martinez CR Jr, Cobb CL, group of psychologists, physicians, and educators, was established. Their collaboration centered Benet-Martínez V, Unger JB and around the idea of an integrative psychological theory based on the premise that mind, body, and Pantea N (2020) The Convergence culture were inseparable and that their development was fundamentally shaped by the individual’s Between Cultural Psychology and Developmental Science: socio-cultural context. Although the goal of creating a unified theory never came to fruition, the Acculturation as an Exemplar. legacy of the Vygotsky-Luria Circle inspired and influenced many schools of thought, including the Front. Psychol. 11:887. development of the field of cultural psychology in the 1970s. Nonetheless, there remains a need to doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00887 integrate developmental science principles into cultural psychology. Frontiers in Psychology| www.frontiersin.org 1 May 2020| Volume 11| Article 887 fpsyg-11-00887 May 10, 2020 Time: 19:24 # 2 Schwartz et al. Developmental Importance of Cultural Psychology As such, the present article is intended to briefly review especially in an increasingly global and diverse era when people cultural psychology as a field and to integrate cultural psychology from different cultures come into contact on a daily basis. with developmental science. As we state in more detail below, Morris et al.(2015) argue that the main problem with the cultural psychology is inherently a developmental discipline, “operating system” metaphor is the underlying assumption that and developmental science is inherently cultural. We use multiple cultural systems cannot co-exist within an individual acculturation – which is defined as both a cultural and a without difficulty. As most computers are unable to run two developmental process (Berry, 2017) – as an exemplar to operating systems simultaneously, if culture was indeed like an illustrate how cultural psychology and developmental science operating system, it would be very challenging, if not impossible, might be integrated. We seek to elucidate precisely what is for individuals to navigate and exist within multiple cultural cultural and what is developmental about acculturation and frameworks. However, a large body of research undertaken with similar phenomena. We do not believe that the cultural and immigrants and ethnic minorities shows that this is not the case developmental components can (or should) be separated, but we at all (Hong et al., 2000; Nguyen and Benet-Martínez, 2013). do believe that each set of components should be enumerated. Instead, Morris et al.(2015) propose that “cultural knowledge Doing so may help to pose important questions and directions is more like a set of apps that users select or even download for the fields of cultural and developmental science, and for unwittingly in the course of exploring the web” (p. 639). the constructs that represent their intersection. We will focus Specifically, just as users open apps for specific purposes (e.g., primarily on international migration, given that acculturation word processing, email, statistical analyses), individuals activate applies largely to migrants and their immediate descendants. This cultural knowledge – purposefully or otherwise – based on the article is organized into four primary sections: key postulates specific surroundings and contexts in which they find themselves of cultural psychology, key postulates of developmental science, or with which they seek to engage. Cultural knowledge or acculturation as an exemplar of the intersection of cultural schemas as a set of “apps” can thus frame, transform, and regulate psychology and developmental science, and future directions for all aspects of psychological functioning when they are activated acculturation research. and are relevant to the situation at hand. Which apps will affect how we think, feel, and behave depends on the types of schemata and knowledge we have acquired within and across cultures KEY POSTULATES OF CULTURAL through the process of acculturation. PSYCHOLOGY This inherent interconnectedness is analogous to the person$context relations postulate from developmental science Cultural psychology focuses primarily on understanding the (Lerner and Overton, 2008). Culture and context provide ways in which cultural processes and human psychological opportunities for different experiences to emerge and shape functioning interplay and shape each other (Shweder, 1991). An psychological processes in unique ways. Culture molds the way important point of distinction of cultural psychology from other we see the world and think, the ways in which we relate to branches of psychology, and from cross-cultural psychology others, and even our biology. For example, Park and Huang in particular, lies in its relativist approach (Heine and Ruby, (2010) review research indicating that the brain regions activated 2010). Cultural psychologists do not pursue cultural comparisons when people are asked to think about their mother differed with the main objective of finding universals. On the contrary, between North American and East Asian cultural contexts – they are interested in uncovering how cultural practices or